Uber

Uber has more than 20,000 drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area. That is more employees than all but Kaiser, city and county of San Francisco, UC Berkeley and UCSF. Uber would be the 5th largest employer in San Francisco Bay Area, if drivers were employees. Uber drivers are independent contractors with few benefits. Uber…

Uber will contribute $1 to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) for rides taken SuperBowl day between 3pm and midnight ET on Sunday, February 1. Enter promo code THINKANDRIDE when reserving your car. In California, Uber’s home state and largest market, drunk-driving crashes fell by 60 per month among drivers under 30 in the markets where…

The most popular story today on SFGate.com is Report: Uber exec plots revenge on journalists, eliciting outrage. The story is about Emil Michael, Uber senior vice president of business, who allegedly said at a dinner last week, Uber could spend a million dollars and hire researchers and journalists to go after reporters critical of Uber in…

Transportation Network Companies (TNC) is a new acronym I learned today after several news stories about the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordering Uber, Lyft, Sidecar and other on-demand ride companies to cease illegal pickup and drop-off services at airports in California. Here is the letter sent to Logan Green, CEO of Lyft headquartered in…

One of the more bizarre stories in travel this week has been the international coverage of Anarchy in the USA with news that an anarchist collective known as The Counterforce targeted Uber car service in downtown Seattle last Saturday night. A self-proclaimed anarchist group says it has a new target: Uber. The group called “Counterforce”…

There are frequent articles in the San Francisco Chronicle about travel start-up companies like car ride service Uber and accommodation booking service AirBnB and the disjointed regulatory environment encompassing their services. On New Year’s Eve in San Francisco, a six-year-old girl was killed by an Uber contracted driver who was not carrying any passengers at…